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Areas of action
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Health care services:
Improving therapy
Many regions of the world lack assured basic health care services. Poor and other disadvantaged sectors of the population in particular have little or no access to medical care. The HIV epidemic is making an already difficult situation even worse. In addition, there is a serious shortage of health professionals. Only five out of the world’s 49 least developed countries (LDCs) have at least 23 medical health professionals (doctors, nurses and midwives) per 10,000 inhabitants; the World Health Organization (WHO) has set 23 as the lower limit for adequate health care provision for mothers and children.
Germany is therefore working with many developing countries to develop strategies for improving their health care services. The aim is to improve the overall health of the population and step up the fight against HIV.
Key elements of this priority area are: provision of advisory services to relevant policy-makers; development and maintenance of the medical infrastructure; and provision of basic medical services to the population. This includes, for example, enabling people to go for an HIV test anonymously and free of charge. Access to essential medicines and qualified medical professionals must also be universally available.
The developing and trialling of innovative social and health insurance schemes is necessary so that poor sectors of the population can also be provided with health care services.
Detailed information on Germany’s commitment to improving health systems in developing countries is available here:
Improving access to antiretroviral therapy
The price of antiretrovirals has been significantly reduced in recent years. As a result and due to efforts by the international community to fund HIV measures, for example through the Global Fund to Fight, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the number of people in developing countries receiving antiretroviral therapy has multiplied. Nevertheless, the WHO’s new therapy guidelines and the fact that the HI virus is increasingly developing resistance to first-line medicines pose new challenges.
The goal of international efforts is to ensure that, by 2015, all those affected worldwide have access to treatment, care and support. The German government supports these efforts and is working hard in partner countries in support of a broad-based, national AIDS policy comprising the following:
HIV information and education campaigns, sex education, voluntary and confidential testing and counselling services, care services and quality-assured access to antiretroviral therapy.
Promoting local production and the use of flexibilities in the protection of intellectual property rights
Germany is engaged at various political levels in efforts to improve therapy options. One of the German government’s aims is to bring about a further reduction in the price of essential medicines for the treatment and care of people with HIV.
That is why Germany supports directly – as well as in cooperation with the WHO and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) – the production of high-quality, affordable generic drugs by local companies and through South–South cooperation in Africa and Asia.
Support provided to manufacturing companies when introducing quality management systems guarantees that these generic drugs are of a high quality. In addition, licensing and supervisory authorities and specialised lab services receive assistance when it comes to capacity building. Further, Germany supports the training of urgently needed technical and academic specialists in regard to the manufacture of medicines and the associated research.
In 2003, the General Council of the World Trade Organization (WTO) reached agreement on the controversial issue of "cross-border" compulsory licensing. As a result of the agreement, poor countries without sufficient capacity to produce medicines can take advantage of compulsory cross-border licences. These countries have since been able to import affordable medicines produced in another country under compulsory licence. In cooperation with the WHO and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Germany supports the full use of available flexibilities in the protection of intellectual property rights by means of advisory and training activities in Africa and Asia.
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